We present carrier-injection-based photonic switches, engineered for optical pulse distribution with maximum energy efficiency. We apply small-signal analysis and for the first time large-signal modelling to methodically optimize the switches for minimum energy consumption and to classify the electronic contributions from resistance, capacitance, and diode. We present optimized electronic switch activation, which yields a sixfold reduction in energy consumption and we show how static power consumption becomes a negligible factor for optical pulse switching. We demonstrate that with adjusted phase shifter dimensions, MZI-based switches can operate with additional 50% enhanced energy efficiency with down to 4 pJ per switching operation. We show even further efficiency improvement using ring-based designs, allowing an additional improvement of 50% in energy efficiency and we discuss the trade-off between efficiency and optical bandwidth associated to the Q-factor. We benchmark carrier-injection-based switches together with comparable technologies of the silicon photonics platform and identify carrier-injection to be the most suitable technology for pulse switching applications.

中文翻译：

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寻求基于载流子注入的硅光子学的最大能效

我们介绍了基于载流子注入的光子开关，其设计用于最大能量效率的光脉冲分配。我们应用小信号分析和首次大信号建模来系统地优化开关，以实现最低能耗，并对电阻，电容和二极管的电子贡献进行分类。我们介绍了优化的电子开关激活，可将能耗降低六倍，并且我们展示了静态功耗如何成为光脉冲开关可忽略的因素。我们证明，通过调整移相器尺寸，基于MZI的开关可以额外提高50％的能效运行，每个开关操作的功耗低至4 pJ。我们展示了使用基于环的设计可以进一步提高效率，允许将能源效率进一步提高50％，我们讨论了效率和与Q因子相关的光带宽之间的权衡。我们将基于载流子的开关与硅光子平台的同类技术进行基准测试，并确定载流子是最适合脉冲开关应用的技术。